How We Test Portable Power Stations - CNET

Our gifting experts are obsessively searching for holiday gifts that are unique, thoughtful and suitable for any budget. Our expert, award-winning staff selects the products we cover and rigorously researches and tests our top picks. If you buy through our links, we may earn a commission. Every portable power station we review undergoes rigorous lab testing to help you get the most reliable backup power. I’m a lab technician at CNET Testing Labs in Louisville, Kentucky. I’ve tested nearly 40 portable power stations this year, and that’s not including the hundreds of other products I’ve tested for CNET. When I first started as a lab technician two years ago, I’d never used a portable power station. The idea of a portable power station being mobile was entirely foreign to me, and I certainly didn’t expect to become so intimately involved in evaluating their performance. To be honest, I thought of them as oversized batteries, and had no idea of how severely misinformed on how incredible and important these units actually are. In an era of increasing energy prices, frequent power outages, wildfires and other natural disasters, owning a portable power station is more critical than ever.